US Open 2008

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U.S. Open: (weekend ending with the 3rd Sunday in June) - hosted by the USGA and played at various locations in the USA.

The U.S. Open is open to any professional, or to any amateur with an up-to-date Handicap Index not exceeding 1.4. Male and Female players may obtain a place by being fully exempt or by competing successfully in qualifying. The field is cut to 156 players.

About half of the field is made up of players who are fully exempt from qualifying. There are seventeen full exemption categories, including winners of the U.S. Open for the last ten years and the other three majors for the last five years, the top 30 from the previous year's PGA Tour money list, the top 15 from the previous year's European Tour money list, and the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings as of two weeks before the tournament.

Potential competitors who are not fully exempt must enter the Qualifying process, which has two stages. Firstly there is Local Qualifying, which is played over 18 holes at over 100 courses around the United States. Many leading players are exempt from this first stage, and they join the successful local qualifiers at the Sectional Qualifying stage, which is played over 36 holes in one day at several sites in the U.S. and one each in Europe and Japan.

The purse at the 2007 U.S. Open was $7 million, and the winner's share was $1.26 million. The PGA European Tour uses conversion rates at the time of the tournament to figure the official prize money used in their Order of Merit rankings (€5,241,402 in 2007). In line with the other majors, winning the U.S. Open gives a golfer several privileges that make his career much more secure, if he is not already one of the elite of the sport. U.S. Open champions are automatically invited to play in the other three majors (the Masters, the Open Championship (British Open), and the PGA Championship) for the next five years, as well as the near-major Players Championship, and they are exempt from qualifying for the U.S. Open itself for ten years. They may also receive a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour, which is automatic for regular members. Non-PGA Tour members who win the U.S. Open have the choice of joining the PGA Tour either within 60 days of winning, or prior to the beginning of any one of the next five tour seasons.

The top fifteen finishers at the U.S. Open are fully exempt from qualifying for the following year's Open, and the top eight are automatically invited to the following season's Masters.